There’s a common misperception that telesales and telemarketing are one and the same thing: telephone calls received at inconvenient times from callers who know nothing about your business or industry, attempting to sell you something you don’t feel you need.
It quite simply doesn’t have to be this way. But it is all about using the correct definition and this in turn will set the right expectation of what can be delivered and what results to expect.
Telesales is the use of a telephone to take a sales order for a product or service within the call. For some companies this is a critical new business development tool; a steady flow of sales orders. It can also be used to cross sell or up sell products to existing customers and is typically achieved following a set script from which deviation is not encouraged.
Examples of telesales include selling of advertising space, insurance products, utility supply switching and mobile phone upgrades.
Telemarketing is the use of the telephone to make appointments with decision makers. This is a more complex process requiring a highly professional phone call, which might require some flexibility in conversation and a dialogue to establish trust and credibility.
Success in telemarketing is often achieved after a number of follow-up calls and carefully selected supporting information being sent by post or email.